The Overloaded Memo: Deciding What the Writer Was Asked to Do
A colleague sends you a 900-word draft titled "Q3 Update" and asks, "Does this work?" The document opens with six paragraphs about a delayed vendor migration, then mentions in paragraph seven that the team missed its onboarding target by 18 percent. In paragraph nine it states that two of five support staff will be reassigned in November. The final line reads, "Let me know if you need anything else." The sender's manager will read the memo in a five-minute slot before a budget meeting. Your colleague has not stated a purpose, an audience, or a desired action. You have 20 minutes before the memo is due.
1. Before editing a single sentence, what two questions must you resolve with the writer, and why does resolving them change the edits you would make?
Read the worked answer
The two questions are: (1) Who is the reader, and what decision or action should the memo produce? (2) Which single point must survive if the reader remembers nothing else?
These are not stylistic niceties; they determine structure. If the memo's job is to secure approval for reassigning two support staff, the 18 percent miss and the November date are the spine, and the vendor narrative is background that belongs in one sentence or an appendix. If the job is to explain why onboarding slipped, the vendor delay leads and the staffing change is a consequence.
Note the mismatch between the draft and the reading conditions: a five-minute pre-meeting read cannot support 900 words of chronological narrative with the decision buried in paragraph nine. Until the purpose is fixed, any cut is a guess. Ask, get a one-sentence answer, then cut against that sentence.
2. The writer replies: "The point is that we need approval to move two people off onboarding in November." Draft a revised opening of no more than three sentences and explain each choice.
Read the worked answer
Model opening:
"I am asking for approval to reassign two of our five support staff from onboarding to vendor migration effective 1 November. Onboarding closed the quarter 18 percent below target, and the migration delay is the main cause. Reassigning these two people protects the migration date; the cost is a further slowdown in onboarding that I estimate at four to six weeks."
Choices and reasons:
- Sentence one states the request and the date first, because the reader has five minutes and a budget decision to make. A request placed first cannot be missed.
- Sentence two supplies the cause in one clause, converting six paragraphs of narrative into a single supporting fact.
- Sentence three names the trade-off explicitly. A reader approving a request needs the cost stated, not implied, or the approval is uninformed.
- The passive "I am asking" keeps the writer as the actor; the alternative "approval is needed" hides who wants what.